Rapportive Announces Acquisition By LinkedIn, (Basically) Confirms $15M Price

After reports earlier this month that LinkedIn was buying contact management service Rapportive, the startup just published a blog post confirming that yes, it has been acquired.

For those of you who don’t use it, Rapportive is a Gmail plugin that shows you the latest social network updates from whoever you’re corresponding with. (I’ve gotten so used to seeing the Rapportive window next to my emails that I sometimes forget that it’s not a default part of Gmail.) And if you’re a Rapportive user who’s worried that the deal will follow the pattern of so many other startup acquisitions, it sounds like LinkedIn won’t be shutting Rapportive down. CEO Rahul Vohra says:

Over the last two years, Rapportive has become an essential product for folks all around the world. When rumours of our acquisition surfaced last week, many asked what was going to happen to the product. Well, we have fantastic news: at LinkedIn, we will support Rapportive, and we will continue to build beautiful products that make you brilliant with people.

The blog post also includes a section titled “The Future,” though Vohra doesn’t say anything specific about what new things he’ll be working on at LinkedIn. He does say that the Rapportive vision involves building products that “you don’t have to remember to use” (italics his) and that become “an intrinsic part of the tools you use every day.”

After AllThingsD broke the news, TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis dug up the fact that the deal was for $15 million in cash. When I asked Vohra today if he had any comment on Alexia’s story, he said, “Yeah — which of our investors were bragging ;) ?”

Speaking of investors, Rapportive raised $1 million from Charles River Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Scott Banister, Jason Calacanis, Gary Vaynerchuk, Dharmesh Shah, Shervin Pishevar, Roy Rodenstein, Kima Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, 500 Startups, Michael Zirngibl, Ashish Soni and David Cancel.